Tábori papok fegyelmi ügyei a reformkorban
Disciplinary Cases of Army Chaplains in the Era of Reforms

Summary/Abstract: The paper focuses on the disciplinary cases of the chaplains of the imperial and royal army bishopric during the era of reforms. The selection of the subject is justified by the fact that literature has so far dealt with the regulations for and the heroic deeds of the army chap-lains only. The most common offenses among the soldiers were suicide and illegal affairs with concubines. A series of regulations were introduced to stamp out the latter, but as of-ficers‟ marriage was restrained by the army leadership due to economic and military rea-sons, these did hardly have the desired effect. Most armies tried to keep suicide cases in se-cret. Suicide was attributed to inadequate religious training, and accordingly prevention primarily meant religious instruction and the conscientious activity of the army chaplains. As far as army chaplains were concerned, the abuses related to keeping inaccurate reg-isters had a long history. These were sanctioned very severely because back then the state had not yet taken upon itself the duty of issuing legal certificates. From the 1830s onwards, the number of church disciplinary cases started to rise rapidly. Even though celibacy was generally practiced among army chaplains, there were cases of infringement in this field as well. It is surprising that even higher rank ministers and members of the army bishopric had disciplinary cases. It was a radically new phenomenon that certain army chaplains became followers of Enlightenment and liberal ideas. One of the first of such cases (that of a certain József Cziny) shocked the superiors. Yet no measures were taken and the liberal adherents of the Hungarian national movement were not removed from the ranks of army chaplains. This cost the Austrian Empire dear during the revolutions of 1848. In spite of that, discip-line among army ministers in the 1830s and 1840s cannot be regarded as worse than among other military groups.

• Details
• Contents